TERRACE TALK: Liverpool - Too many players know time is up
Of course legal validation for the Hillsborough families was the main thing; virtually everything else dwindles when put alongside that.
Football has a tendency to put on its finery and step up on such occasions.
Newcastle, Everton and Swansea were especially good, but as the bereaved began to think about financial compensation and continue the pursuit of real justice, particularly against South Yorkshire Police, you could detect the first murmurs of “seriously? You still won’t let it go?”
Twenty-seven years it took just to get this far.
There are actually people who think all of that agony can be boxed up with a neat ribbon and forgotten?
I’d like to say this defies belief, but it doesn’t.
The Murdoch empire, at the pitch-black heart of what’s made things ten times worse since 1989, still couldn’t resist another knifing and spitefully removed the news from its English front pages.
Over the coming weeks, you’ll see veiled insinuations that the new judgement doesn’t matter, isn’t final. They still want to believe their ‘Truth’.
Back to the actual football then for a bit, and
A breakaway goal conceded in the 92nd minute of a European semi-final; how Red can you get?
There’d already been a cautious approach which got the ticking doom-clock in your head clanging louder and louder as the game wore on. You either go with the flow of this madness, which has been here largely since Brendan came, or you’ll end up crazed yourself.
There’d be an entirely different outlook if Moreno’s childlike surge forward had actually ended with a “precious away goal”.
And people assume Klopp has long-term plans to make Liverpool vaguely normal again.
Has he, though? Defensively we’re getting worse, but caught outnumbered at the back in a European away leg with one minute left? That’s a new one on me.
Is Klopp explaining these things to them and simply not being heeded, by all of those individuals who suspect the exit door knob will soon hit them on the arse?
Or is he just another Brendan, revelling in his own heavy metal legend and to hell with the consequences?
If Klopp really has got what it takes, then this coming Thursday must be the last sighting of Loopy Liverpool. It’s been nice, invigorating almost, but it’s time to grow up now. A joke’s a joke, after all.
It was always going to be a waste of time fretting about whatever they served up in South Wales.
They still managed to get us frothing at the mouth about a game most couldn’t care less about. That’s top-class trolling right there.
A line has seemingly been crossed by second-level players who won’t buy into the idea they’re playing for their futures, maybe even a regular place.
They know they’re ballast now and attempting to impress a manager who’s already convinced of your surplus-ness is a colossal waste of time.
If Sturridge plays whole games against Stoke, Bournemouth, Newcastle and Swansea then gets marginalised against Dortmund and Villarreal – even with Origi injured and Benteke almost done despite his goal – he’ll be off.
It’s clearly not his fitness that’s the issue. All his pouty nonsense at Swansea will just make Klopp dig his trench deeper, whether it’s the wisest thing to do or another bullet to the foot.
Sunday noon kick-off in South Wales. Thank you, football. If anything the contempt for ordinary fans keeps growing. “Television’s paid the money, you will just turn up anyway so who’s to stop us?” Who, indeed? Liverpool’s season may not end on Thursday, but given that clean sheets are rarer than rocking horse droppings these days you’ve got to be sceptical about the eventual outcome.
I promise that’s my last reverse jinx of the season. It’s become exhausting. Time for reality to take control, I reckon…
